Is investing in safety worthwhile? A methodology for assessing the costs and benefits of accidents in the construction sector

AccordingtotheInternationalLaborOrganizationaccidentatworkand occupational diseases caused globally around 2.3 million deaths in 2014. The costs attributable to accidents at work and occupational diseases represent a loss of wealth amounting to 3.9% of global gross domestic product and 3.1% of that of all EU Member States. Accidents represent a significant social and business cost in all production processes, particularly in the construction sector, which in Europe and Italy has the highest rate of fatal accidents. Starting from an analysis of existing models used for the calculation of accident costs, this contribution proposes a method- ology to evaluate the costs occurred both in case and in absence of accident, by some stakeholders (Worker, Enterprise, Society, State) with reference to the construction process, in four scenarios that can be foreshadowed in the mention context. The model developed could be applied in different sectors; in this first phase there are some examples of compilation of the tools and matrices of the methodology using input data from the construction sector in Italy.